Fiber conveyer and cleaner



y 1955 R. c. YOUNG ET AL FIBER CONVEYER AND CLEANER Filed July 24, 1951 INVENTORS R C YOUNG R. A. RUSCA ATTORNEYS United States Patent FIBER CONVEYER AND CLEANER Ray C. Young and Ralph A. Rusca, New Orleans, La.,

assignors to the United States of America as represented This invention may be manufactured and used by or for the Government of the United States of America for governmental purposes throughout the world without the payment to us of any royalty thereon.

This invention relates to endless member conveyers, such as belt conveyers. More particularly, it provides a conveyer or transport which not only rapidly and efficiently transports staple textile fibers, such as cotton, but which removes from such fibers a considerable portion of the non-fibrous substances which are commonly mingled with the fibers.

A typical and particularly important application of the present invention is in the transporting of cotton throughout its conversion from baled raw cotton to sliver or yarn. Baled cotton contains varying amounts of dirt, bits of seed, shale, leaves and stems (trash). In its conversion to yarn the cotton is subjected to the treatments provided by a number of well standardized and conventional machines including bale breakers, hopper openers, hopper feeders, lattice feed aprons, cage sections, finisher pickers, and the like. An important function of each of such machines is the removal of trash.

The most common conveyers for transporting staple textile fibers and feeding them into the fiber processing units of machinery are lattice aprons. These aprons consist of two to four parallel leather or fabric belts to which are riveted wooden or metal slats. I"-

We have found that replacing the lattice aprons with a flexible strip having a series of rigid upwardly extending straight projections of relatively small diameter and upper surface area, which projections are long enough to support substantially all of the fibers above the surface of the flexible strip but are spaced far enough apart, preferably about Mr inch, to allow trash and non-fibrous materials to fall between them, results in the fibers being transported between and within the fiber processing units with an efiiciency equal to or greater than that provided by the lattice aprons and, in addition, results in the removal of far greater amounts of trash than is removed by a lattice apron.

In the accompanying drawing,

Fig. 1 is an elevation, with parts removed, of a cottonworking machine such as is described in U. S. Patent No. 2,365,793, illustrating a practical application of the conveyer;

Fig. 2 is a side view, partially in section, of the conveyer; and

Fig. 3 is a plan view thereof.

Referring to the drawing, the flexible strip 1 is a 35,; inch thick composition of canvas plies embedded in a rubber-like material. The projections 2 are 36 inch diameter wire staples projecting inch from the surface of the strip at an angle of about 80' to the surface of 2,712,162 Patented July .5, 1955 the belt. The projections slant away from the direction in which the conveyer moves and are beveled to a point on their trailing edge. They are alternately spaced in rows so that their points are about A inch apart.

The rigid projections 2 can be constructed of any rigid wear resistant material. They can have any elongated shape suitable for supporting the fibers and allowing the passage of trash. They preferably extend at an angle within the range of from 90 to the surface of the belt to an angle at which the upper surface area becomes appreciable and restricts the passage of trash. Preferably, the projections slant away from the direction in which the conveyer moves. The projections can be topped by a rounded, fiat or pointed upper surface, as long asthe upper surface area is not large enough to undesirably restrict the passage of trash.

The following example of the utilization of a fiber conveying and cleaning belt provided by the invention is presented to illustrate certain advantages resulting from its use.

With a conveyer provided by this invention replacing the conventional lattice belt on the cotton-working ma chine depicted in Figure 1, the following results were obtained:

l Trash removed from fibers, Percent Belt speed, Feet per minute It is known that the average trash removal in con ventional type conveyers is less than 1 per cent and, in fact, is usually less than 0.5 per cent. From the above data it may be seen that the conveyer provided by our invention increased the removal of undesired non-fibrous materials to from two to four times that removed by the conventional conveyers.

Having thus described our invention, we claim:

A conveyer for transporting staple textile fibers comprising an endless flexible strip bearing a series of substantially rigid and upwardly extending projections, which projections have a diameter of about inch, have an upper surface area not sufliciently large to undesirably restrict the passage of trash therebetween, project about inch above the strip to support substantially all of the fibers above the surface of the strip, project at an angle of about to the surface of the strip at a slant away from the direction in which the strip moves to avoid entrainment of the fibers between them, and are spaced about A inch apart to allow non-fibrous material to fall between them.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS FOREIGN PATENTS Great Britain May 6, 

